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Bending my knees, I tried to dig my heels into the floor to push back, to force him to pull out.

He covered my body with his own and kept his still semi-hard cock lodged deep inside of me…touching my womb.

I turned my head to avoid his knowing gaze.

He grabbed my jaw and forced me to look at him. "That's what you think. I'm warning you. You've only felt the heat, babygirl. You haven't touched the flames yet."

With that, he gave me a bruising kiss, leaving no doubt about who was winning this sick game we were playing.

The moment he pulled out of me, I scrambled to my feet.

Clutching the ruined dress to my breasts, I ran out of the ballroom.

Not caring I was nearly naked.

His servants were well trained to stay far away from him when they were not wanted.

If only I had learned that lesson.

I ran straight to my room and slammed the door shut, putting my back against it and sliding to the floor.

The sensation of his body on mine still imprinted on my skin.

As I raised my hand to push back my tangled hair, a blinding flash caught my eye.

The massive diamond on my finger glinted viciously in the dim light, mocking me with its cold fire.

I gasped, having forgotten it in the heat of our violent coupling.

"No, no, no," I muttered, frantically twisting the ring, trying to wrench it off.

It wouldn't budge.

The platinum band seemed to constrict, tightening like a vise around my finger.

I twisted harder, my skin turning raw beneath the metal.

I spat on my finger, trying to lubricate it, then pulled until I thought my knuckle might break.

The diamond continued to taunt me, glinting with each desperate movement.

I grabbed the hand lotion from my nightstand, squeezed a glob onto my finger, and worked it around the ring.

Still nothing.

My flesh was swelling now, reddening as I yanked and twisted with increasing desperation.

The metal band cut into my skin the harder I pulled, tears of frustration springing to my eyes.

"Come off, come off!" I hissed through clenched teeth, as if the ring itself could hear me.

I tried using my teeth, biting at it like a trapped animal, tasting metal and lotion and the salt of my own tears.

But the ring remained, a perfect prison sized exactly for my finger.

Another chain, another claim, another piece of me he'd calculated to possess.

Of course Sebastian would have known my exact ring size.